When I first began keeping genealogy records, I was able to save them right on my hard drive, but over time I found there were just too many to keep that as a long range plan. Census records, photos, PDF files, and even web pages need to be kept in one place, but not necessarily just on my hard drive.

I had already put many of my scanned photos and documents on disks which really makes it easy to use my computer to access them quickly. All that said, hard drives are still the heart of any computer you can use as a holding area until you decided how to disseminate your records where you want them.

If you’re just beginning your genealogical research, a tip I would suggest is to make sure you give names to all your documents, or put them in some logical and format. For instance, when I save census records I begin the file name with the year, name of the head of household and state abbreviation.

Before I began scanning and saving photos in earnest I created surname folders for them, and put them in a main folder I named for each designated family group. That would be for me: Yates Family Photos and then sub-folders like Barnett, Dawson, Kelsay, etc., for the allied family names. It really isn’t all that time consuming if you do it so you can find the folders and files easily. If you start out organized you will end up enjoying record keeping much more.

Do you have a method you like to use on your hard drive to keep files under control?